Off the Tourist Path in Ireland

There are so many things to do in Ireland (as there are most places) that don't make it into the tourist books. We stumbled on one this weekend down in southern Wexford county (next county east of ours). We had gone to a birding hot spot called the slobs (strange name I know). We saw lots of geese (the big attraction of the slobs), but they were all quite far away. Saw Greenshanks, Common Teal, Shoveler and Linnet as well, so still a good day out. On the way back, we checked out Lady's Island Lake on the way back because it looked to be a likely birding spot.


It is a good spot - but not in winter (although we saw lots of Pochard and Oystercatchers). Turns out that it is a breeding colony for five species of terns, but that would be spring and summer, so we'll go back.


In the meantime, we stumbled on a 13th centrury Norman fortification that was doing a marvellouse impression of the leaning tower of Pisa (Cromwell was most definitely there) and a beautiful little graveyard. I don't mean this to be morbid, but the graveyards here are really pretty. They are all on the grounds of tiny, old chuches (no dates shown for this one). In this case, only 1 wall of the original church survived. What was amazing about this one was the wild garlic covering the enclosure, with a few daffodils thrown in for colour.

By the way, this is not bulb garlic, this is a grass-like plant that tastes and smells like garlic, so the graveyard smelled like a delicious Italian meal (this really sounds gruesome doesn't it?). We have not tried it yet, but we do have a recipe for wild garlic pesto. I'll find somewhere else to pick my wild garlic though and leave this spot undisturbed.


(White flowers are wild garlic)